Unfortunately we didn't get a Diamond Rugs set at Brooklyn Bowl, as promised, but that's because "Steve couldn't make it from the lobos show." Los Lobos was playing the same night at City Winery, and Steve from Los Lobos (who was supposed to cab it over to Brooklyn Bowl) also plays in Diamond Rugs who played their debut live show on 12/29 in Atlanta (two Deer Tick members and one from Dead Confederate play in it too).

That aside, Deer Tick, like Lucero the night before, played a raucous and entertaining show complete with frontman John McCauley in a New Year's Baby costume. They went on not long before midnight, meaning the countdown, which they may have been slightly late for, happened early in their set (complete with Cee-Lo in Times Square on the tv screens). Deer Tick's setlist pulled from their entire catalog and the encore-less night ended with two special guests and a stage full of people (and fallen confetti). First Craig Finn of The Hold Steady (who was also at Lucero) joined Deer Tick on stage for a cover of "Bastards of Young" by the Replacements (not the first time Craig performed that song), and thenPatrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus came out to help them close the show with a drunken singalong of "Let's All Go To The Bar". By the end you couldn't really find Patrick though because half the audience seemed to be on stage... I think that's how it went. Details are fuzzy. Luckily we have these pictures to help jog my memory. More of them, and some videos, below...

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Virgin Forest

Dead Confederate

J. Roddy Walston and the Business

Deer Tick

Deer Tick Brooklyn Bowl 2011

You can catch J. Roddy Walston and the Business on the road in 2012 with Lucero. Look for the pair on the Women & Work tour, which hits on 4/20 at Webster Hall. Tickets go on AMEX presale on 1/11 at noon and regular sale 48 hours later.